Friendliest States for Small Business

Thumbtack.com, in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation, has released data indicating that Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah are the friendliest states towards small businesses.

Small business owners gave California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont the lowest ratings.

The Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey drew data from a nationwide universe of job creators and entrepreneurs to investigate the best places in the country to do business.

Some key findings from the survey:

Texas had three of the top five cities (Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin), while California was home to the bottom three (Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento).

Small businesses said licensing requirements were nearly twice as important as tax rates in determining overall business-friendliness.

Among small business owners nationally, women were 9% more likely than men to feel supported by their state governments.

An important predictor of small business friendliness was whether small business owners are aware of the state or local government offering training programs for small businesses.

Nationwide, small businesses owned by politically conservative entrepreneurs were 17% healthier than small businesses owned by politically liberal entrepreneurs.

Idaho, Nevada and Delaware had the most small business-friendly tax codes; California and New Mexico had the least-friendly tax codes.

Nebraska small business owners were the most optimistic about their business improving during 2012, while Iowans were the least optimistic.

The South was the most small business-friendly region of the country, while New England was rated the least small business-friendly.

See the full results, which include full sets of rankings, dozens of easily searchable quotes from small businesses nationwide, regional comparisons within states, and Census data comparing states’ and cities’ key demographics against those of other states and cities.